MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
Last week the Cumberland Mayor and City Council named the road on the Williams Street side of Fort Hill High School that connects Greenway and Avondale avenues after the late, great Mark Manges.
It’s now Mark Manges Way, which is somewhat ironic and altogether fitting – ironic because when he was in the midst of his brilliant four-year athletic career at Fort Hill, the newspaper guys at the time sometimes referred to Mark as “Main Street” in print because he essentially did everything for every team he played for; fitting because Mark Manges always found a way when it came to helping those around him have a better way of things, and that was never more evident than through his work as the founder and chairman of the Greenway Avenue Stadium Improvement Committee.
Mark competed in Greenway Avenue Stadium through much of his childhood and for four years at Fort Hill as a two-time All-American football player and an All-State track and field star, dazzling thousands of sports fans and hundreds of college football recruiters.
The stadium served as his starting point, his springboard to the rest of the world and to the rest of his life, and he is arguably the greatest all-around athlete to play and compete in the stadium and in the history of Cumberland athletics.
Yet he likely made his most profound and lasting impact on the place through his hard work and devotion to restoring it to being a showcase venue.
The first freshman to start as a varsity quarterback in Cumberland scholastic football history, Mark was a two-sport All-American at Fort Hill, being selected his junior (1972) and senior (1973) years in football, and his senior year (1973-74) in basketball.
After being one of the most highly-recruited high school athletes in the country in both sports, Manges selected Maryland over Penn State to play football. He lettered all four years in College Park and played for three Atlantic Coast Conference championship teams as the Terps reeled off a record 21 consecutive conference wins to play in four bowl games under head coach Jerry Claiborne – the Liberty, the Gator, the Cotton and the Hall of Fame.
At the conclusion of Manges’ first three seasons, Maryland was ranked 13th, 8th and 6th nationally.
As a junior, Manges quarterbacked Maryland to an 11-0 regular season and a No. 6 national ranking and was named first-team All-ACC quarterback, third-team All-America and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s October 4, 1976 issue.
The 6-3, 220-pound Manges passed for 1,145 yards in 1976 on only 139 attempts. He rushed for 448 yards and led Maryland’s trademark “student-body” sweeps to open holes that helped his running backs gain many more.
After the Terps won the ACC for the third straight season, they earned a Cotton Bowl berth in Dallas, where a Manges-inspired comeback fell short in a 30-21 loss to Houston.
Manges opened his senior season as a Heisman Trophy candidate, and Maryland tried to take advantage of the situation by placing Manges’ pictures and likenesses on billboards throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. It was, however, not to be as Manges broke his hand early in his senior season, before returning midway through the year to help Maryland to an 8-4 record and another bowl game.
Manges was a fourth-round selection (105th overall pick) of the Los Angeles Rams in the 1978 NFL Draft and spent his lone NFL season with the St. Louis Cardinals backing up Pro Bowl quarterback Jim Hart.
When Mark Manges returned home to Cumberland he wasted no time in becoming involved in the community as an executive board member of the Dapper Dan Club of Allegany County, the chairman of the “We Are Fort Hill” committee, serving on the Fort Hill Scholarship Fund and founding and chairing the Greenway Avenue Stadium Improvement Committee.
Mark used his renown, his natural drive and leadership, as well as a quarterback’s moxie and charm in drawing needed volunteers and fundraisers to the stadium project, including local and state government, because as he said, “Greenway is not just a sporting venue; it is a community venue for all ages,”
He paid bills, he filled out grants and he made constant cold calls to anyone who could help raise revenue for the improvements needed for Greenway.
Mark’s mission was to make the Greenway Avenue Stadium Capital Improvement Fund an ongoing fundraising vehicle that will continue to grow and evolve into an endowment, so, “it can feed itself and there will be no end to the fundraising, with more and more community involvement.”
With Mark’s leadership, this project was established for all of Cumberland and for Greenway Avenue Stadium. which Mark appreciated to be, short of churches, the central gathering place for this community since the 1930s. Thus, he believed, it should be viewed and taken care of as such.
With Mark as its leader, the Greenway Avenue Stadium Improvement Committee replaced the home and visitors stands, making significant enhancements to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility; installed new turf as well as an eight-lane track; a new scoreboard and sound system as well as new Musco lighting for the field.
Up until his death on September 22, 2023, he was actively raising money for the new lighting system.
Mark Manges carried a passion for excellence and for competition, a love and devotion for Fort Hill, for the University of Maryland and for his hometown of Cumberland – his roots and for the people he loved and who supported him.
He was drawn back to all of them, and to the place that made all things possible for him.
Mark once said, “Moving on does not mean leaving behind. Never forget where you come from.”
Mark Manges did not leave us behind, even when he didn’t live here. Yet when he moved back to Cumberland for good, he most certainly remembered where he came from, and the stadium will remain a permanent landmark for not only his extraordinary feats, but for his even more extraordinary deeds in his devoted efforts to provide Cumberland with the very best venue to realize and to share the very best of what Cumberland, Maryland has always offered.
Mark Manges Way. It works.
Always has.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began. covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at mikeburke934@gmail.com. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT